How Free Technology Can Improve Teamwork

As small businesses continue to grow and scale, technology will be key to creating an engaged, highly functioning team across offices and time zones. (NAPS)

(NAPSI)—If you own or work for a small to midsize business, you’re
far from alone. Such companies represent 95 percent of all firms and 63
percent of total employment.

Now, many are improving their productivity and collaboration through
digital technology.

Managing Growth

Consider this: Many small businesses start with a team of one or two. They
experience growth, then change to help them scale. As the company grows in
employees, locations or business functions, new challenges surface. No longer
can you rely on one or two people to get work done. You need to unlock the
power of your team to truly grow and scale.

At the same time, employee buy-in is important for small businesses in
particular. With fewer employees, morale has an even greater impact. Ensuring
that employees are happy and productive means communicating clearly and
keeping everyone in the know. What’s more, according to a recent
Microsoft survey, new generations entering the workforce enjoy chat just
as much, if not more than, in-person conversation. The survey also found that
remote workers value video calling nearly two times more than does a nonremote worker.

Technology’s Role

This is where technology can make or break a small business’s
success.

For example, chat, files, apps, voice and video meetings, and everything a
small business needs can be brought into one hub for communication and
collaboration with Microsoft Teams, a chat-based workspace within Microsoft
365. Here’s a look at some of the problems such a system can solve:

• Communication can be
complicated: Now, conversations can be organized simply into Teams and
then channels, and organized by department or project.

• New employees can feel a
little lost: It’s easy for them to learn what the team is working
on and ramp up quickly because past conversations, files and activity are in
Teams.

• If you step away for a
moment, you can lose the thread of the conversation: Get threaded,
persistent chat that creates a platform for quick communication that’s
easy to catch up on.

• Searching for a document
can be time consuming and you may not even be sure you have the right
version: Now you can have seamless document storage and collaboration
with Office apps built in.

• Coordinating all the
technology for a group meetup can be challenging:
Start one up with just one click because voice and video calling are built
in.

• Business functions and
conversations can be hard to juggle: Integrate with third-party apps such
as GitHub, Asana and Trello.

• When you’re a busy
small-business owner, staying in the know and tracking deadlines while not in
the office is important: The Teams mobile experience is rich—letting
you chat, video call, view documents and collaborate just as if you were in
the office with your team.

Perhaps the best news is that Microsoft just released a new, free version
of Teams for up to 300 people, built to help small businesses grow, scale and
engage their teams. It can solve communication troubles by providing seven
significant services:

“Growing
small businesses can simplify collaboration by using productivity apps that
bring chat, meetings, files and business apps together into one platform. To
help, Microsoft’s chat-based workspace, Teams, is now available in a
free version. http://bit.ly/2JhhDGi”